Star Tribune
To house Nenookaasi residents, Minneapolis tries new approach with $1 million contract with Helix
Faced with the challenge of providing housing and services to the residents of south Minneapolis’ large Camp Nenookaasi homeless encampment, the city of Minneapolis tried a new strategy: bypassing its traditional partnership with Hennepin County and instead awarding a nearly $1 million contract to a relatively unknown, for-profit group called Helix Health and Housing Services.
There was no competitive bidding process for the contract. Rather, the city based its decision on its experience working with Helix co-owners Adam Fairbanks, a consultant for Red Lake Nation, and Carrie Johnson, the former service area director of housing at Avivo, during its response to another major encampment: the Wall of Forgotten Natives, which popped up along Hwy. 55 in 2018.
At Nenookaasi, as was the case with the earlier encampment, many residents are Native Americans with tribal affiliations, struggling with a complex combination of addiction and trauma. These barriers have made it difficult for them to use sober emergency shelters and complicate the work of the usual nonprofit outreach agencies trying to match them with services and suitable housing in the private rental market.
In Helix’s first two months of work with the city, Camp Nenookaasi has been shut down multiple times — only to have residents move to another unsanctioned campground. But Helix has reported some successes, housing nearly 100 people, far surpassing its initial goal.
“Obviously, we had our hands full with Nenookaasi, and we needed a new and innovative solution,” said Minneapolis’ deputy health commissioner, Heidi Ritchie. “Looking around the country, nobody’s found a way to address these large encampments, and so we’re really looking at approaches that are innovative, that do take into account the specific and tailored barriers that individuals face, and how culture plays into that.”
The contract
Helix declined interview requests in prior months, but agreed last week to share its first public report and discuss its methodology.
Fairbanks and Johnson formed Helix, a limited liability company, in May 2022. Last October, they approached the city with a proposed “comprehensive public health response” for the residents of Camp Nenookaasi.
The resulting city contract covers December 2023 through November 2024 and outlines a pilot project in which Helix would quickly identify 32 people living in encampments and move them into “temporary, safe, affordable housing,” with on-site substance use treatment, therapy and supervision. Once the people have been stabilized — which could take years — they would get help moving into permanent supportive housing.
The contract provides for Helix to hire eight full-time employees for housing services and seven full-time drug counselors and therapists, practically doubling its staff.
Traditionally, contracting with social service organizations that do work in encampments has been Hennepin County’s role. While Minneapolis has long contributed financially to those efforts, the Helix contract is the first of its kind for the city, said Minneapolis spokesperson Sarah McKenzie.
A different strategy
Helix says it has so far helped 98 Nenookaasi residents, exceeding the initial goal of 32. The residents were bussed to Twin Cities rental properties, grouped with the people they wanted to live with and given month-to-month and year-long leases with private landlords, said Johnson.
“The goal is that they hopefully maintain it for forever, or move to a new place of their wishing,” she said.
The reason Helix was able to house nearly 100 people so rapidly, unlike the typical experience of chronically homeless people, is because Helix doesn’t follow Hennepin County’s methodology, said Fairbanks.
Hennepin County is currently trying to reach functional zero chronic homelessness by 2025 through a system called coordinated entry. The strategy: prioritize people with the greatest needs — those diagnosed with a disability who have been homeless for at least a year. Case managers help clear obstacles to housing, like expunging a warrant or settling unpaid rent from a prior lease, before searching for the right type of housing. Last year, Hennepin County said more than 90% of people served this way remained housed.
“We make sure that once we’ve crossed that finish line to get you into housing, it’s someplace that you can really thrive,” said Danielle Werder, area manager of Hennepin County’s Office to End Homelessness.
But there has been criticism that coordinated entry isn’t dynamic enough; affordable housing providers with units reserved for people coming out of homelessness sometimes have to wait long periods before they’re able to lease them out, hurting revenue and leaving valuable housing stock unused.
Helix does not use coordinated entry. While most local rental subsidy programs are funded by the Minnesota Department of Human Services and conducted through Hennepin County, Helix has a housing support agreement through Red Lake, which doesn’t require it. That enables Helix to find unoccupied rental units in the private market, take whoever happens to be standing in front of them at a homeless encampment, and immediately move them in, said Fairbanks.
“Good luck finding people that are in encampments or moving around,” said Fairbanks. “The whole system of prioritizing those who need it the most? It doesn’t work for those who need it the most, right? The system is designed to work for people where you can find them, and that doesn’t work for an encampment population.”
New challenges
But there have been challenges with Helix’s model, too.
There isn’t 24-hour staffing or food provided at most of the units where Helix has housed people. Renters aren’t supposed to have drugs in their apartments, but people are still using. Helix’s staff are trained in harm reduction — methods of safe use — but the drug and mental health treatments are voluntary, as is sobriety.
The Star Tribune found two men at Nenookaasi in January who had tried out a Helix placement only to return to the encampment.
Robert Broderson recalled climbing aboard a Helix van that pulled up to the encampment in early December. He was taken to a small apartment building in north Minneapolis and assigned to a room with two other people who were in a relationship. The arrangement made him feel so awkward that he left right away.
Ben Howze said that he couldn’t get along with another Helix housemate who sold drugs, and that he returned to Nenookaasi to get food.
Of the 98 people served at the beginning of the contract, Helix has lost contact with 12, said Johnson, resulting in a program retention rate of 88% in its first quarter.
Only time will tell how successful Helix’s rapid rehousing model will be in the long run. Helix must submit monthly invoices to the city and make quarterly public reports.
Opioid settlement money
The city’s contract with Helix was funded with money from its portion of settlements in national legal cases with opioid manufacturers over their role in the opioid crisis.
Half a million Americans died from opioid overdoses over the last 25 years, and communities including Minneapolis have been devastated by encampments, drug use on public transit and the petty crimes committed by people trying to feed powerful addictions.
In August 2021, the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office joined a $26 billion settlement agreement with drug manufacturers and distributors, and that money is now trickling down to the local governments that signed on.
Minneapolis received $2.2 million in settlement payments as of last summer, and is scheduled to get $5.2 million more by the end of this year.
Last February, the city approved $120,000 annually for a full-time senior public health specialist to help direct opioid settlement spending, but has not yet filled the role.
In late 2023, the city’s health department spent $10,000 on an education campaign about Steve’s Law, which allows any member of the public to carry and use the opioid overdose-reversing drug naloxone, and shields from prosecution the person calling 911 to report an overdose.
Minneapolis is also finalizing contracts with four organizations selected through a competitive bidding process for treatment and long-term recovery services.
Anti-police brutality activists interrupted a Minneapolis City Council meeting Thursday to call for Police Chief Brian O’Hara’s firing, saying his department failed a Black man who begged police for help for months, to no avail, before he was finally shot in the neck by his white neighbor.
John Sawchak, 54, is charged with shooting Davis Moturi, 34, even though three warrants had been issued for his arrest in connection with threats to Moturi and other neighbors.
Activists showed up at the council meeting and asked for time to talk about the case. Instead, the council recessed and activists took the podium and castigated the city for failing Black people, even as state and federal officials are forcing the police department into court-sanctioned monitoring because of past civil rights violations.
Nekima Levy Armstrong, founder of the Racial Justice Network, said O’Hara needs to be held accountable.
“This is not the first time instance where the community has raised concerns about his poor judgment, poor leadership, blaming the community and excuses. It’s completely unacceptable for him to get away with it,” she said. “How many Black people’s doors have they kicked in for less?”
On Thursday the council voted to request the city auditor review the city’s involvement in and response to the matters between Moturi and Sawchak.
Mayor Jacob Frey released a statement in response saying he supports the council’s call for an independent review of the case, but O’Hara “will continue to be the Minneapolis police chief.”
Protesters also questioned why the public hadn’t heard from Community Safety Commissioner Toddrick Barnette, who called a news conference within hours to say he’s not going to fire O’Hara and the city leadership supports him.
A Girl Scout from Troop 58068 told the Woodbury City Council recently that they should allow backyard chickens in the city: They cheer people up, she said.
It turned out that chickens were on an upcoming agenda and, perhaps pushed a bit by the scout’s lobbying, the Woodbury City Council at their next meeting passed a new ordinance allowing for backyard hens.
The new ordinance went into effect on Oct. 23, the night of the council meeting, and will allow people who live on property zoned R-2, a “rural estate” district, to have backyard chickens. A typical city lot is zoned R-4 and those areas still cannot have chickens, the council said.
The city has received requests “here and there” for the last several years about backyard chickens, City Council Member Andrea Date said.
Backyard chickens come have home to roost — and never leave — in a host of other Minnesota cities that allow them, from Hopkins to Thief River Falls. It’s long been allowed in both St. Paul and Minneapolis, and new cities started approving backyard coops during the pandemic, when interest spiked.
In Woodbury, it wasn’t until the question was included on the city’s biannual survey that city staff knew how people felt. The survey found less support for chickens on a typical city lot — just 13% of respondents said they strongly approve of the idea while 43% percent strongly disapproved — but a majority approved of backyard chickens on lots of 1 acre or more.
The city’s rules until recently only allowed chickens on “rural estate” properties of five or more acres.
The new ordinance allows up to six hens, but no roosters, on property less than four acres that meets the zoning requirements. Larger properties can have an additional two chickens per acre above four acres. The ordinance also sets a height limit for chicken coops of 7 feet. No license or permit is required in Woodbury for backyard chickens.
Star Tribune
Anonymous donor pays overdue bill for Fergus Falls home where town’s first Black resident lived
A $10,000 overdue special assessment bill threatening tax forfeiture of a historic Fergus Falls home was paid off this week thanks to an anonymous donor.
Prince Albert Honeycutt lived at 612 Summit Avenue East, renamed Honeycutt Memorial Drive in 2021. Not only was Honeycutt the town’s first Black resident — settling there in 1872 from Tennessee — he was the state’s first Black professional baseball player, first Black firefighter and first Black mayoral candidate.
He was an early pioneer and prominent businessman who owned a barbershop in town. Missy Hermes, with the Otter Tail County Historical Society, said Honeycutt and his wife were likely the first Black people in Minnesota to testify in a capital murder trial of a man who was convicted and hanged in Fergus Falls.
“In other places, you would never have a Black person testifying against a white person, especially a woman, too, before women could vote even,” Hermes said. “Obviously he was respected enough.”
Nancy Ann and Prince Albert Honeycutt with their children inside the now-historic Honeycutt house in 1914. Photo from the collections of the Otter Tail County Historical Society.
When dozens of people from Kentucky moved to Fergus Falls in April 1898, known as “the first 85,” Honeycutt helped integrate them into the community.
He died in 1924 at age 71 and is buried in Oak Grove Cemetery in Fergus Falls.
Up until 2016, several owners lived in the Honeycutt home. But the city bought and sold the house to nonprofit Flowingbrook Ministry for $1 to take over the tax-exempt property and operate the ministry.
Ministry founder Lynette Higgins-Orr, who previously lived in Fergus Falls, moved to Florida several years ago and little activity has been going on in the historic home since. But she said there are plans to make it into a museum.
